Diamond Pitfalls

Published: 06-16-2009

Views: 18,031

Ronnie Mervis is co-owner of Mervis Diamond Importers - the leading diamond dealer in the Washington area for the past 30 years. Voted the "Best Place to Buy a Diamond” in the Washingtonpost.com Readers' Choice BEST BETS contest and selected in 2006 for having the best wedding rings in W*USA9’s A-List Top 100 of Washington, DC’s Best Local Businesses, Mervis Diamond Importers is known for supplying their outstanding diamonds to tens of thousands of happy clients each year.
With a direct link to the diamond-producing centers of South Africa, Mervis offers wholesale pricing, guaranteeing their customers great value while their commitment to customer service ensures an enjoyable buying experience. Mervis Diamond Importers offers three marvelous showrooms in Tysons Corner, Virginia, downtown Washington, DC and Chevy Chase, Maryland. Coming soon will be a fourth showroom located in Rockville, Maryland.
Ronnie handles the company's marketing and public relations on a very active and personal basis. His familiar accent is heard daily on over thirty radio stations, stretching from Baltimore to Richmond.

Ronnie Mervis: Hi there. This is Ronnie Mervis from Mervis Diamond Importers and in this clip we're going to talk about events which occur occasionally and which you should certainly be aware of. I would like to talk to you about three things, synthetic diamonds, color enhanced diamonds and fracture-filled diamonds. Two of them are certainly bad, one is not but you should know what we're talking about. Now, real diamonds are formed in nature. Many of them were formed over billion years ago. Some of them took a million years to crystallize. That's a real diamond, but they are mined with great expense, tremendous amount of technology and know how it goes into deep level of mining, and in off shore ocean side mining and what you get is a natural product, cut and polished to perfection which is the pleasure of most men to put on the lady of their choice's finger. However there is a new phenomenon and that is synthetic diamonds or man made diamonds. The producers of them claim that they are exactly the same expect they didn't take a billion years to make them and they weren't formed in nature. But there are people who are producing synthetic diamonds now emulating the process taking pure carbon gas and compressing it under great temperature and great pressure into a so called diamond. There is a discussion going on in the Federal Trade Commission and other places, whether a diamond which is produced artificially can be called a natural diamond or not. Some people say how can it be natural if it wasn't formed in nature. Other people say, well if it has the same components and made in the same process, it should be a natural diamond. The debate is whether it should be a natural diamond, a simulated diamond or a synthetic diamond. In any event, whatever it is, does it have the same value to you? For a guy who is proposing to a girl saying, will you be my wife, will you marry me, and be the mother of my children, and spent 50 years with me and instead of me spending a significant amount of money and buying you a beautiful diamond, I got this one for 20 bucks will it do, is there going to be the same amount of cash rate. That is for you to decide and you should always consider if a diamond is offered at a price which maybe too low, is it a real diamond or is it a synthetic diamond and if it's a synthetic diamond, it isn't a real diamond. So there is something for you to think about. My personal opinion is, as long as it is disclosed for what it is, no great crime but you should know and there may be the tendency with unscrupulous dealers to sell something which is not the natural diamond as the real thing, you should know. Next, I want to talk about two other things, which is I think are very bad and which you shouldn't buy under any circumstances. One is a fracture-filled diamond. I made the point earlier on that every diamond has some or other minor inclusion. That's the law of nature. Everything has some slight imperfection somewhere. There is a technical fault where diamonds which have got inclusions in them can be drilled with a laser drill. One can go right down to the very root of the inclusion and by soaking the diamond under pressure in sulfuric acid the black spot can be bleached out. And therefore the diamond which has inclusions are now being made inclusion free. The only thing is you now have a little tunnel going from the exterior of the diamond into the center where the black spot was drilled out. So therefore the tunnel gets filled and there are various medium, components which are used to fill that space and it can pretty well hidden. The risk is however that with the passage of time, that silicon or whatever it is, the factor that is used to fill the fracture and which is transparent with time either becomes opaque and so you can see it. It's almost if you have a root canal and the root has been filled and then it begins to fall out again. Reputable organizations, ours for instance, will not sell you a fracture-filled diamonds, under any circumstances, it simply doesn't exist. But there are other organizations that will sell a fracture-filled diamonds and if they are going to do it properly, you as a consumer should be informed that it is a fracture-filled diamond and that the diamond has been significantly that it has a low price and should come at a low price because it's not the natural thing and there is no crime about it as long as there is adequate disclosure. As there is, well the next issue that I want to talk about and that is color enhanced diamonds. When we spoke about color, as one of the four Cs, I mentioned that there is no great difference in beauty between a diamond which is in one color range or the next and that the principal difference occurs because one occurs more frequent in the nature than the other and rarity is a huge factor which influences the price of diamonds. So what happens if one takes a low colored diamond, enhances the color artificially but subjecting it to some sort of radiation and improves the color. Does that diamond then become a genuine colorless diamond and if so, or an improved color diamond, has it's color improved and has it's price improved. Should the diamond now be sold as a higher color diamond because that's what it is but it was artificially enhanced to that situation and really if you're talking about rarity it is not a rare diamond at all. It is one of many that might have a poor color but it's had it's color enhanced or should it be treated as a low color diamond which has been artificially enviewed. Again I think that the fact that the diamond is color enhanced, itself is not all that bad but it has to disclosed and there should be a certificate saying this diamond is either color enhanced or fracture-filled and you know about it and you've been explained the differences and it's up to you to select it. But it doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes diamonds which are fracture-filled or color enhanced are not sold with certificates, bearing that point out, they are sold as been what they are not and the buyer beware. Going back to something we spoke about in the previous clip, when we're talking about internet shopping that is just something to be aware of. Often times a diamond which is being sold at a price which is just too good and when the bargain is something that you can't resist you have to question, is that a natural diamond or has it been altered? Something for you to think about. We can't offer solutions to everything in this series of clips, but it is certainly something for you to be aware of and the question that you're well advised to ask. Thank you very much. This is Ronnie Mervis from Mervis Diamond Importers, thanking you for watching this segment.

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